The Importance Of Constitution And Bill Of Rights - Essay Example

Constitution and Bill of Rights The framers of the US government constructed a radical new proposition that was based upon the fear of two conflicting yet equally dangerous forms of rule: monarchy and unchecked democracy. The government of the United States was formed in the crucible of fiery revolution against the excess of monarchical rule, yet the ultimate outcome of a representative republic is clearly not true, or at least absolute, democracy. The checks and balances inherent in the three separate but equal branches of government are quite obviously a great distance away from even the kind of constitutional monarchy in place in England against which the revolutionary forces fought. What may be less obvious is that this same system of governance was also put in place so that the people were given the power to rule themselves in a distinctly indirect manner. Representative government based on elected officials have their place in the American system of government both as a rejection of the status quo of the patently unfair system of monarchical rule based on primogeniture and as a rejection of direct involvement of the majority of the citizenry. In essence, America’s form of democratic principles carries within it the promise of a rejection of the potential for a mad king such as George III to attain power simply through birthright as well as the admittance that the bulk of the electorate are equally unprepared for the grave responsibilities of directly controlling the business of running the country. In addition, the framers of the Constitution also quite deliberately place obstacles in the path of minority opinion always mandating rule (McKay 52). By creating a system of checks and balances involving endowing the three branches of government with their own specific powers and lack thereof, the government of the United States possesses both the advantage of not putting too much power in the hands of a single individual, but it also has the effect of often grinding down the process of instituting change to a near-halt. Article I of the United Constitution provides for the basic design of the legislative branch of the US Government, the Congress. The Constitution clearly delineates in no vague terms that the Congress has the power to spend and tax so as to “provide for the common defense and general welfare” of the country. In addition, Article I of the Constitution also endow the Congress the power to born money, regulate commerce with foreign nations and amongst states, as well as the sole power to declare war and support the armed forces. Congress was also invested with the power necessary to establish the postal system of the U.S. and set up the federal court system below the Supreme Court. The United States Congress is a bicameral legislated body divided between the House of Representatives and the Senate. Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution succinctly describes the only qualifications necessary to be elected to the House of Representatives: Representatives must be at least 25 years old, have been a citizen of the United States for the past seven years, and live in the state in which they are seeking election. Section 3 provides the requirements for election to the Senate: 30 years of age, a US resident for the past nine years, and a citizen of the state which he serves. Each state has two Senators regardless of the geographical size of the state or population; the number of Representatives is determined by population and over the years as population shift has occurred some states have witnessed a reduction in the number of Representatives they send to the House while other states now send more Representatives than they had in the past (McKay 74). The architects of the American system of government placed effective limits on the power given to the legislative branch in order to exploit the idea of a balanced government. In addition to the powers strictly defined in the Constitution as belonging to the executive and judicial branches, the authority of Congress is also limited by the fact that much authority was entrusted to the states in order to obstruct the potential for overweening federal power over localized jurisdictions (McKay 74). The executive branch is headed by the office of the President, but includes all cabinet-level secretaries and institutions. The Presidency is regarded as the most powerful position in the American government today, especially with the adoption of the idea of the regal President under George W. Bush, but the original intent of the framers of the American system of government clearly had no intention of investing one single individual with as much real or imagined power as the office conducts itself in the present day. The creators of the Constitution saw the office of President as being above political infighting that would facilitate the passage of the bills proposed by Congress into law (McKay 56). In addition, the President was invested with the duties and responsibilities associated with foreign policy and is considered the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces (McKay 208). The ideal President would be the equal of Congress rather than more, or less, powerful. The qualifications to become President are more stringent than for the Congress; the President must be 35 years old and natural-born citizen of the country, whereas a member of Congress can be a naturalized citizen. The President is considered to be independent from the legislative and judicial branches, but at the same time is inextricably intertwined with them. For instance, although it is the President who appoints the members of his own Cabinet, those nominees must receive the consent of the Senate. A more troubling element of the sometimes muddled balance of powers is that the President also appoints both the Attorney General and nominees to the Supreme Court. This system clearly has the potential to create conflicts of the interest when alleged wrongdoing by the President is being investigated (McKay 97) . The framers of the Constitution, despite their ideal of an executive branch leader who shared power equally with the other branches, wrote into the foundational document of the U.S. government the power, indeed the necessity, of the President to intervene with certain discretionary powers when the legislative or judicial branches of government are incapable of fulfilling their duties and obligations. This has often been the case during times of national emergencies and war. At the same time, however, Congress is invested with the power to impeach a President who violated the Constitution. There have only been two cases where the Congress used their impeachment powers and in both cases the impeachments were politically motivated rather than motivated out of a sense of urgency and necessity to protect the union (McKay 196). On the other hand, many Presidents have been considered to have committed impeachable offenses without any investigation by the Congress; often because the majority party controlling Congress also happened to be the same party to which the President belonged. The third branch of government involved in the balance of separated power is the judiciary, which is essentially made up of all the various court systems in America from the Supreme Court to traffic court. The Constitution actually provides little information about the specific powers and limits of power given to the judiciary. The only real guidance regarding the judicial branch of the American government is contained in Article III of the Constitution and that only provides for the creation of the Chief Justice and that Supreme Court justices have lifetime terms. In addition, Article III also endows Congress with the right to create federal courts as necessary and gives an outline of the types of cases that the Supreme Court can hear (McKay 400). That said, the judicial branch has been allowed to evolve over time. Congress has been invested with the power to design the U.S. court system as well as designing the details of how that system operates. The American judiciary eventually would consist of a vast system of courts that administer court cases at the federal, state, and local levels. The aim of the judicial branch is accountability for the bills passed by Congress that were signed into law by the President, as well as more localized statutes at the criminal level of justice. The judiciary has the power to interpret the law as well as enforce it. The interpretation of laws is accomplished by holding court cases that determine the Constitutionality of laws or rights that were violated and enforcement is accomplished through the trial process. Amending the Constitution is the method by which to address the inescapable fact that a true democracy based on rights, liberties and freedoms of the individual is always evolving to meet the progression of time and the changing of values, morals and tradition. The only process used so far for proposing an amendment to the Constitution involves a two-thirds vote by both Houses of Congress. There is actually a second process by which Congress can proposed a new amendment that is if Congress calls for a convention at the request of the state legislatures in two-thirds of the states. So far, however, this method has never been utilized, in part because it is a much more difficult means than simply getting three-fourths of the Congress in both houses to approve. The fact that thousands of amendments have been proposed but only twenty-seven have been finally ratified and written into the Constitution gives a clear indication of the wisdom of making the process so difficult. Amending the Constitution of the United States, the very foundation for the entire government system, should be a sober and time-consuming process because very often the engine driving the proposition of an amendment is based on a partisan politicians wishing to overturn a very specific Supreme Court decision. The best recent example is the oft-discussed idea of an amendment that would outlaw gay marriage; the passage of such an amendment would clearly be discriminatory and in violation of the spirit of the Constitution itself. Nevertheless, it is conceivable that such an amendment could eventually be ratified simply because of undo political pressure (Chism). This example demonstrates the potential for abusing the privilege of amending the Constitution simply as a way of bypassing Congressional procedure. For that reason, the Constitution does not simply leave the process of the ratifying a Constitutional amendment in the hands of Congress. Once an amendment has been proposed and approved by two-thirds vote in Congress, the amendment must then be ratified by the states. This process mandates that three-fourths of the state legislatures approve the passage of the amendment. Another method is also possible in which approval can be granted during a ratifying convention in three-fourths of the states. Which method is utilized is as the discretion of the U.S. Congress (Chism). The Constitution of the United States is the foundation of all the statutory laws in the country and represents a remarkable attempt by the founding fathers to institute a new system of governance by those who had nearly had their taste of freedom cut short by the monarchical power of Great Britain. The framers of the Constitution strove to establish a system of government that would be based on a complex and intricate system of checks and balances designed precisely to obstruct the potential for absolute power to ever be grasped by or handed over out of fear to just one man or a select group of people who place their own interests above the country’s. The result of that effort was the creation of a genuinely unique document that forms the basis of the American government in which no single branch could enforce their superiority over another. Each of these individual branches were endowed with certain limitations covered by the powers of the others, as well as the ability to influence those other branches. As such the basis for the separation of powers lies in the concept of forcing the three branches to be monitored by the others. The American government’s foundation based on the division of system of being divided into legislative, executive and judicial branches with the capacity to restrain the others from exercising their authority with control or oversight has proven to be and efficient and reliable method of governing the country fairly and, so far, without the fear of tanks rolling down the streets to provide military support for a coup conducted by the leaders of one of the three branches. Works Cited Chism, Kahlil. "The Constitutional Amendment Process." Social Education 69.7 (2005): 373+. McKay, David. Essentials of American Government. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000. Read More